‘I do not seek to undermine the Book of Genesis, FitzRoy, or the word of God. What do you take me for? But there are contradictions therein, anomalies, passages that could be interpreted figuratively. For instance, the lower one geologizes into the rock, the earlier the strata, the simpler the life-forms one finds: not human beings, but great reptiles, giant armadillos, even. Does this not suggest to you an older earth than one which was created in seven days?’
‘You presume that the rock is older because the life-forms are simpler. You presume that the life-forms are simpler because the rock is older. You are dating one by the other. Perhaps the strata are not as simple or as progressively layered as you seem to think. What of the modern-day shells preserved in the clay below the Megatherium head? Besides, who is to say that a giant armadillo or ant-eater is any simpler than a small one? One might argue the very opposite. Your arguments begin to sound dangerously like those of your grandfather, or of Lamarck.’
‘Perhaps the smaller versions of these creatures were better suited to the sparse vegetation of these parts. Perhaps their bigger cousins did not have enough to eat - who is to say? I am only speculating. Such enormous herbivores would have required a colossal supply of vegetation. Perhaps they were forced to compete for it, and lost that competition.’
‘The vegetation of Africa is no less sparse than the vegetation of these parts, and yet it supports vast numbers of elephant and rhinoceros. In the Brazils, however, where the vegetation is lush and abundant, there are no large herbivores. What you suggest does not follow. Besides, we know nothing of the state of the earth before the flood - or the atmosphere surrounding it; we do not know if it moved in the same orbit; or if it turned on its axis in the same manner; or whether it had huge masses of ice near the poles. Have not fossil rhinoceros bones been found near the Arctic?’
‘Cuvier believes that there may have been a series of floods.’ FitzRoy seized a book from the shelf behind his head and riffled through it. ‘Allow me to quote Buckland, a geological authority without peer, I think you will agree. “The grand fact of a universal deluge at no very remote period is proved on grounds so decisive and incontrovertible that, had we never heard of such an event from scripture, or any other authority, geology of itself must have called in the assistance of some such catastrophe to explain the phenomena of diluvian action which are universally presented to us.”’ He slammed the book down on the table.
“‘Great men are not always wise” - Job thirty-two, nine,’ Darwin responded stubbornly.
On the point of raising his voice in frustration, FitzRoy thought better of it. ‘Tell me, my dear friend, is it the case that you are no longer inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit?’
‘Of course I am,’ said Darwin, ‘but ...’ He tailed off.
‘Do you wish to talk to me about it?’
Spruced up with red ochre, coal-tar and whitewash, and scrubbed free of the fatty coating of a thousand boiled seals, the Paz and the Liebre had metamorphosed into smart little cock-boats. The crew gathered around admiringly as they bobbed jauntily beside the Beagle, while inside his cabin FitzRoy put the final touches to the contract: to Mr James Harris of the Rio Negro, for one year’s hire of both boats, plus the services of himself and Mr Roberts as pilots, the sum of £1680.
‘And I thought the headroom on the old Beagle was barely sufficient,’ said Stokes ruefully, lowering himself into the main cabin of the Paz, which - although a spacious seven foot square - was an ungenerous thirty inches in height. He would be sharing this cramped space for the next twelve months with Roberts, the sealer, and Midshipman Mellersh.
‘Pretty boats!’ said Fuegia Basket, and clapped her hands with delight.
‘Think yourself lucky you will not be sharing with Harris,’ laughed Wickham, who was to have the privilege of wedging himself into an even smaller cabin in the Liebre, alongside the boat’s owner and Midshipman King.
The prospect of being second-in-command of his very own vessel, on a year’s expedition to survey the bays and channels south of Bahia Blanca, had seemed to King the very idea of heaven on earth; until, that is, he too had inspected the principal cabin. Then the reality - that he would be spending the whole of the following year squeezed into a corner by Harris’s sweating bulk - had sunk in. He and Darwin stood forlornly at the starboard rail. The philosopher’s initial guilty pleasure at getting their whole cabin to himself had dissipated somewhat, as he had come to realize how much he would miss the dependable Stokes, the egregious Wickham and his best pal, the young midshipman by his side. Sulivan, who would become acting first lieutenant of the Beagle, looked on with misgivings of his own, for he did not wish to accede to Wickham’s position in such a manner. He steeled himself to beard FitzRoy in private.
‘Let me go in Wickham’s place, sir. It will be a rotten uncomfortable year for them, and Mr Wickham takes such a pride in the Beagle.’
‘Your suggestion is generous to a fault, Mr Sulivan. However - naval etiquette bids me do otherwise. If the expedition is to divide in two, then my second-in-command must take charge of the second part.’
‘Then how about Stokes? He has been with you from the start, sir - he has surely earned his place on the Beagle.’
‘Mr Stokes is my best surveyor. I doubt that anyone else in the ship could map such a maze. Besides, were you to replace him, then I should find myself sans lieutenants.’
‘If only the Admiralty had sanctioned the hire of two more luxurious vessels — they are but cockleshells.’
‘Only cockleshells, I fear, possess a sufficiently shallow draught for the task. Besides, the Admiralty has not sanctioned the hire of any vessels.’
‘But then how — ?’
‘They are requisitioned on my own responsibility.’ ‘You are not authorized?’ Sulivan’s face wore a faintly appalled look.
‘I have memorialized Whitehall seeking authorization. I hope to obtain it retrospectively.’
‘But if you do not?’
‘Then I shall be sixteen hundred and eighty pounds the poorer.’
Sulivan gasped. It was an astonishing sum for one man to bear, even a wealthy man like FitzRoy.
‘I believe that their lordships will approve of what I have done. But if I am wrong no inconvenience will result to the public service, since I am alone responsible, and am willing to pay the stipulated sum.’
‘No inconvenience to the public service, perhaps, but to yourself? It would be more than mere inconvenience ...’ Sulivan’s expression clouded over with worry.
I can ill spare the sum, it is true, but he cannot know that.
‘I am willing to run the risk. Without it our task cannot - simply
‘I am willing to run the risk. Without it our task cannot - simply cannot - be completed. If the results of these arrangements should turn out well, then I trust I will stand excused for having presumed to act so freely. Besides, I have given my word to Jemmy, to York and to Fuegia that they will be home before the summer. I have given my word, Mr Sulivan, as one gentleman to another.’
The point, Sulivan had to concede, was unanswerable.
The little city of Buenos Ayres lay in flat green meadows along the river Plate’s southern shore, hugging the ground, its domes and towers rising cautiously from rough, muddy streets and squares. The brown river washing thickly at its banks appeared richer and creamier than ever, as if it would curdle against the docks and jetties. As the Beagle made sticky progress upstream, the river seemed to adhere to her flanks and clog her passage.
The cannon-shot rang out unmistakably across the lapping water. Most of those on deck turned in time to see a white puff of smoke drift languidly up through the rigging of the city guardship. The three Fuegians, poised, alert, froze midway through a reluctant passage of Bible study with Mr Matthews. FitzRoy, on the poop deck, and Mr Sulivan and the master at the wheel, were held in a split second’s limbo of indecision before their training took over. Darwin, confused, spun like a top, attempting to locate the source of
the sound. Only the few oldsters on board who had seen action as nippers and powder monkeys in the Great War flung themselves instinctively to the deck. A second later, a faint whistle overhead, accompanied by the ripping of parting ropes, announced that the cannonball had passed harmlessly through the rigging. Only then did the realization dawn, fully, that the Beagle was under attack.
‘How dare they?’ exclaimed FitzRoy. ‘How dare they? Bring her round, Mr Chaffers, and beat to quarters!’
She was already sailing as close-hauled as she could, some six points off the breeze, which was gusting from the northern shore. It was an easy matter for her to reach across the wind, her sails bellying, and swing into a course that would bring her bearing down alongside the guardship. The drums sounded their intent, and there was a scene of furious activity on deck as the guns were made ready.
‘Damn them,’ cursed FitzRoy. ‘A shot into the works of a steam engine would not do so much damage as a shot too close to our chronometers.’
‘But why did they fire at us?’ asked a panic-stricken Darwin, who had located a safe place to hide, crouched behind the huge Megatherium head.
‘Another revolution, I shouldn’t wonder. Revolutions are the fashion in these parts. When they are not fighting the Indians, they fight each other. Whoever controls Buenos Ayres controls the silver route from Upper Peru. So it is just one caudillo, one strong man, after another - except that none is strong enough to hold on to power. They say General Rosas is the strongest, but he will not enter the fray until he is sure of victory’
The Beagle was closing rapidly on the guardship now, and Darwin could see the gunners scurrying to their positions on the enemy vessel. The disparity in bulk between the two ships was becoming increasingly apparent as they drew nearer, the Beagle giving away a good few hundred tons to her rival. Surely, thought Darwin, we shall not dare to take on a ship twice our size, broadside to broadside? He buried his head as deeply as he could in the Megatherium’s eye-socket.
‘Mr Sorrell, back the fore-topsail!’ ordered FitzRoy. Drilled to perfection a hundred times, the men jumped to their tasks, hauling the fore-topsail yard round in opposition to its fellows, to bring the Beagle juddering to a near-stop. The gleaming brass snouts of her new guns bristled aggressively along her starboard side: two six-pounders before the chesstree, a six-pound boat-carronade on the forecastle, and four lone, wicked-looking nine-pounders abaft the mainmast. As they drew alongside the guardship, FitzRoy leaped up on to the rail and, balancing there, shouted across the intervening channel of chocolate-cream water: ‘If you dare fire another shot, we shall send our whole broadside into your rotten uncivilized hulk! Is that understood?’ And then, for good measure, he repeated the statement in Spanish.
There was silence, and then, across the water, a brief flurry of activity as the Buenos Ayres gunners stood down from their posts. The Beagle drifted on past her, into open water, and Darwin drew his head cautiously out from the black depths of the eye-socket.
‘You did not fire,’ he ventured redundantly.
‘I had no intention of doing so. The damage to the chronometers from our own recoil would have been catastrophic. Besides, such a firefight would have been sheer folly. We would have been blown out of the water. He was twice our size, did you not see?’
‘But - but how did you know that their captain would not fire?’
‘Did you see the state of that ship? The sails were mildewed, the paintwork filthy, and you can smell their bilges from here. You can tell a lot about a man from the state of his ship. My dear Philos, I knew he would not fire.’
By sundown they had swirled down with the current to Monte Video on the river’s north-eastern shore, where His Majesty’s frigate Druid was moored on permanent station. FitzRoy went across in the cutter to pay his respects to Captain Hamilton, and to make his formal report of the insult to the British flag - an incident that would not, of course, go unpunished. As he clambered aboard, he was stopped in his tracks by an apparition: a pale but welcome face he had never expected to see again.
‘My God - Hamond!’
‘FitzRoy!’
‘I thought you drowned - lost with the Thetis.’
‘N-no, sir,’ replied Hamond, who had not outgrown his stammer. ‘I was b-back in England, taking my lieutenant’s examination - I’m a p-passed mid now. Everybody else d-drowned, sir.’
‘But, my God, you’re alive!’
And the two men threw their arms around each other in a most un-naval fashion.
By the time the Druid had hauled her anchor at sunrise, and had set sail for Buenos Ayres to demand the arrest of the guardship captain, FitzRoy had obtained not just restitution but a new mate: Robert Hamond would chum with Charles Darwin in the library of the Beagle.
The celebratory mood was not to last, however. A stack of mail had been waiting for Darwin in the Druid - he had excitedly unwrapped the latest volume of Lyell, sent by Professor Henslow - but then, lurking malevolently in wait at the bottom of the pile, he had spotted the black seal. Feverishly, he had torn open the letter, almost ripping it in two in his haste to get at the contents. His cousin, his sweet, mischievous cousin Fanny Wedgwood, was dead of cholera at the age of twenty-six. His thoughts flashed back to that perfect afternoon the previous summer when he had sat out on the porch with Fanny and Emma and Hen and Uncle Jos and Aunt Bessie, Fanny teasing him, inciting him to go on the voyage, urging him to take care of himself, Emma’s arm curled about her sister’s waist. Fan had worried for her cousin’s safety, his safety, and now it was her fragile existence that had been crushed by a heartless or careless or loveless deity. He felt simultaneously lucky, and frightened, and angry at the senselessness of it. This was not some meaningless native whose life had been taken, but a beautiful, intelligent young lady in the prime of her life. He knew what FitzRoy would say, that it was God’s wish, that one should not challenge His will, that there were reasons for everything that could not always be revealed to us. FitzRoy would probably be right, but that did not mean he wished to hear him express the sentiments. Damn it, he would follow the man anywhere - what magnificent pluck he had shown in facing up to the Buenos Ayres guardship - but he was always so certain of everything.
Darwin’s reverie was interrupted by the crackle of gunfire. At first he thought it must be the Druid, laying waste to Buenos Ayres city centre in an orgy of retribution; then he remembered that the river Plate was so ludicrously wide at its mouth that a good hundred miles lay between the two cities on their opposing banks. No, the firing came from the centre of Monte Video itself. Presently a small boat appeared, rowed somewhat inexpertly by four gentlemen in top hats and tail-coats, one of whom stood up and began to wave and gesticulate frantically at the Beagle. FitzRoy came to the rail to try to discern what was being shouted, no easy matter as the man’s relinquishing of his oar was causing the little boat to go round in circles.
‘Where is the Druid, sir?’ bellowed the slowly revolving figure.
‘Gone to Buenos Ayres,’ shouted back FitzRoy.
‘Then you are our only hope, sir!’
Eventually the little craft was secured alongside, and the portly gentleman and his comrades were helped up into the Beagle.
‘Richard Bathurst at your service, sir,’ gasped the man. ‘British consul-general in Monte Video. Allow me the honour of grasping your hand. May I introduce to your acquaintance Señor Dumas, the police chief of Monte Video.’
Señor Dumas made the position clear. ‘There is mutiny in the city. President Lavalleja is away in Colonia, and the commander of troops here in Monte Video has seized power in his absence. He has opened the gaol and armed all the prisoners. They have occupied the citadel - the seat of government. It is a military coup d’etat.’
‘What do these soldiers desire to bring about with their coup d’etat?’ asked FitzRoy.
‘Some wish for the reinstatement of President Rivera, who was overthrown by President Lavalleja. The Brazilian soldiers want the city returned to
Brazil. The soldiers from the United Provinces want the city to become part of the United Provinces. The Uruguayan soldiers want it to remain part of Uruguay, although some of them want the country to revert to its old name of “Banda Oriental”. The black soldiers want the slaves to be freed. They want many things. Please, Captain, you must help us. Only you can help us.’
‘I feel for your predicament, Señor Dumas, but you must realize that I simply cannot interfere in South American politics. As captain of one of His Majesty’s ships, I must maintain a strict neutrality at all times.’
‘I don’t think you understand, sir,’ said Bathurst, who was still panting for breath. ‘There are British families in the city whose lives and property are at risk. British women and children, sir, whose honour is at the mercy of these villains.’
‘That changes the position. Then, sir, my forces are entirely at your disposal. How many are the mutineers?’
‘Approximately six hundred, including the freed prisoners.’
‘I can muster some seventy men all told.’
‘We are four, sir, plus perhaps the same number in the city.’
‘All stout men, sir, all stout men,’ volunteered the third member of the party, a brisk elderly gentleman with a fierce military moustache, who had armed himself with a broom handle.
‘I say - Colonel Vernon?’ Darwin came forward, recognizing the voice.
‘Good Lord — it’s young Darwin, isn’t it?’
‘You know each other?’
‘Know each other?’ barked the colonel. ‘More than that, sir! We have ridden to hounds together!’